A Visitor from the East!

A couple of weeks ago we had the great pleasure of welcoming back, just for one night, a KCC member from pre-covid times, Algis Toleikis. Algis was visiting Kenilworth with his family from his home land of Lithuania, and found time to pop into the Ale Rooms to catch up with a few old friends and play some chess. I say a few, because only Joshua and I of the older club members were there initially, though Bernard did hot foot it back from Solihull, after a crushing win for the D team, to join in the reunion. But thankfully there were several newer KCC members also in attendance to join in the welcome. A shame that more of Algis' old friends from the Gauntlet days weren't around, but  - no names mentioned - they are bound to miss out on such enjoyable occasions if they opt to sit in a dark room in, say, Fen End instead of socialising with their mates on a Thursday evening! Anyway, I can report that Algis was in excellent spirits and reported that things were going very well back home, where he is once more in the world of academia, but now running his own team and research projects. He certainly looked in good health!

Algis, flanked by Dylan and - lurking in the darkness - Joshua 

Algis' chief enemy was always the clock, but there seems to have been a remarkable transformation in the last few years, as within about 90 minutes of arriving at The Ale Rooms, he was doing the unthinkable, and playing a bullet game with Steph! As preserver of club morals (and club chess clocks!) I have since had to outlaw this practice on club nights as being far too exciting for a respectable chess club, but it was certainly quite a sight on that particular night.

I was extremely fortunate to win my single rapid encounter against Algis that evening, as he was giving me a very hard time for most of the game. There's no doubt he would be a very useful player for us if he ever gets the urge to return to Warwick University!

But the really big news he was able to tell us was that he had recently notched up a GM scalp. It was in a simul, but it was still a GM - and not any old run of the mill GM, but quite a celebrity in the chess world. His victim was Viktorija Cmilyte, a former European Women's Champion who has been a (full) GM since 2010, with a peak FIDE rating of 2542. She is also well known as the former wife of GM Alexei "Fire on Board" Shirov and, since 2013, as the wife of Peter Heine Neilsen, Danish GM and chief coach/second of Magnus Carlsen for many years. She is largely inactive in the chess world these days, as her career has taken her into politics where she is currently Speaker of the Seimas - the Lithuanian Parliament.

Algis in play against Viktorija Cmilyte. Little does the GM know what is about to happen! 

Regrettably, the whole game has not been saved for posterity ...... but the conclusion has! In this complex position, both teams are on the verge of landing knockout blows to the opposing king. Despite the excitement, the all seeing chess engine tells us - almost inevitably - that it is a dead draw. The evaluation, of course, is 0.0! But you still have to find the right moves, and even for a GM that can sometimes prove to be too difficult a task!

Bravo, Algis! A great scalp. Best of luck for your life and career in Vilnius from everyone at KCC. It was great to have had you as a club member for a few years, and it was a real pleasure to see you again. And hopefully it was not for the last time!